Gurub e Aftab

About Artist

I am a Visual Artist from New Delhi, India. A graduate in Applied Art from the prestigious Delhi College of Art, Delhi (1989-199) . To keep pace with the advance in technology, I further pursued advanced diploma in multimedia and designed and worked for several multinational companies. After completing advanced diploma I also had a privilege to teach multimedia at Arena Multimedia for two years along with freelancing. But Painting was my calling and I took up painting full time and now i have a studio of my own . My unique style embodies my mission statement “I do not paint what I see but what I want to see”. Painting has a way of bringing out my creative best. It is my voice expressed and a personal exploration into a world purely of my own. It allows me to speak from my heart, to what moves and motivates me, while serving as a mirror of my inner self. I am a dreamer and dream to see beauty and nature all around me. I am concerned about the environment and vastly depleting greens and growing concreate jungles. Painting nature is in a way my tribute and honouring outdoors and bringing them indoors. Nature Inspires me but I am not interested in replicating nature, but rather the bits and pieces that strike a chord with me. Like a famous quote by Vincent Van Gogh “I dream my painting and then I paint my dream” The essence of my work is exploring the beauty that is present in the natural world. In this process I take what draws me to nature and bring it back to canvas via my own voice. I find painting flowers, liles, waterscapes come naturally to me. My recent body of work is mainly waterscapes and lilypads and reflects, increasingly, forms of abstraction through simplification of composition and reduction of all unessential elements. I feel I am a colourist and all my work is around making beautiful obliquely structured composition and focus on pure vivid colours. My style of painting is inspired by the Impressionists but is very modern and contemporary. I work with Impasto technique in which I paint on canvas in very thick layers, wet paint on wet, usually with palette knife and strokes are visible. Sometimes I mix paint right on the canvas while working on building layers and composition Painting is a life changing endeavour that I love and must do and a part of my daily life. My new works that I am doing now is a part of my evolution, and it is a natural progression from what I was doing earlier into something more liberating and adventurous. But even more, it allows me to speak from different place than before, in a whole new language and often when I get to work on my canvas, I have no clue what to do next, and then, its almost as if by magic, things begin to happen. Besides Painting on canvas, I have expanded my creativity towards wearable art, also known as “Art to Wear”. While the making of any article of clothing or wearable object typically involves aesthetic considerations, the term wearable art implies that the work is intended to be accepted as a serious and unique artistic creation or statement pieces may be sold or exhibited. My wearable Art refers to individually designed pieces of digitally printed, limited edition designer Silk Scarves, Sarees, Ties and Pocket squares. I have had a privilege of exhibiting my works in many prestigious galleries in India and abroad. March 2019 was invited by “National Gallery of Modern Art” New Delhi to be part of a group show on the occasion of Women’s Day from 8th March – 22nd March 2019. Asia Art Fair in Korea in November 2018 Yes Art Can 2017 at NGMA To honour the guru shishya parampara, a bunch of College of Art Alumini started this non profit Initiative and honoured the gurus of College of Art and exhibited their works along with shishyas from 3 decades. It was an honour to be a part of the organising team. I was invited to exhibit few of my works at a group show in “Nice” in France in 2010 along with other contemporary artists from France , UK and USA. Besides these, many group and solo shows to my credit in Delhi, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Goa, Lucknow etc. Have been a judge for many art competitions organised by various institutions like ESI dental College, Presentation Convent school, St. Columbus school, Care Investments, Fortis Hospitals etc. Art Camp: Speaking Art Foundation organized a two day Visual and performimg art event at “Rang Bhoomi” during Gurugram Kala Mahotsav, 30-31st March 2018 Art Camp organized by “National Gallery of Modern Art” in March 2019 for women in Art on the occasion of Women’s day.